It was recently that I had listened to Iain Abernethy’s podcast called "What can Traditional Martial Artists (TMA) learn from MMA." A very informative podcast which points out that both disciplines can learn from each other, which is very hard for most Martial Artists to grasp. You can find it here if anyone is interested in listening to it:
I had the chance to write to Iain about my thoughts on this podcast:
Hello,
I have listened to the latest podcast over the weekend. Very informative. These days I hear criticisms on both sides. I have been wary of this back and forth with Martial Artists saying "My style is better than your style." Traditional Martial Artists these days denounce MMA as a Martial Art and point out that these prize fighters are egotistical, barbaric and so forth, focusing on the physical side of Martial Arts. MMA practitioners look at Traditional Martial Arts as outdated, not effective enough and that forms are useless.
People should know that the difference between the two disciplines is that Traditional systems such as Karate was not meant for sports, fighting a match against an equally skilled opponent, the art was meant for civilian self-defense against an unskilled opponent. And MMA is designed for sport. Both disciplines can learn from each other in my belief. However, most Martial Artists are not open minded. Guys like Lyoto Machida and George St. Pierre had a strong foundation in one traditional style and then crossed trained in other disciplines to be skillful in the ring. So being open minded is an important thing to further develop your skills in the Martial Arts.
I have listened to the latest podcast over the weekend. Very informative. These days I hear criticisms on both sides. I have been wary of this back and forth with Martial Artists saying "My style is better than your style." Traditional Martial Artists these days denounce MMA as a Martial Art and point out that these prize fighters are egotistical, barbaric and so forth, focusing on the physical side of Martial Arts. MMA practitioners look at Traditional Martial Arts as outdated, not effective enough and that forms are useless.
People should know that the difference between the two disciplines is that Traditional systems such as Karate was not meant for sports, fighting a match against an equally skilled opponent, the art was meant for civilian self-defense against an unskilled opponent. And MMA is designed for sport. Both disciplines can learn from each other in my belief. However, most Martial Artists are not open minded. Guys like Lyoto Machida and George St. Pierre had a strong foundation in one traditional style and then crossed trained in other disciplines to be skillful in the ring. So being open minded is an important thing to further develop your skills in the Martial Arts.
When I was starting out in Karate, I was aware of these things such as high ranking masters not liking other masters and putting down a “style”. That’s right, I said style. It seems to be part of the norm for decades, but in my view it shouldn’t. I have been a reader of Black Belt magazine since 2005. From what I perceived was that the magazine was trying to program into Martial Artists mind that the Martial Arts are split up into four categorical disciplines or styles, maybe some others would see it as 3, 5, or 6 categories, but the way I saw it, has the number 4 and they are, Traditional/Classical Martial Arts (TMA), Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), Reality Based Self-Defense (RBSD), and Xtreme Martial Arts (XMA). Now I’m not knocking Black Belt mag. It is a great magazine that can gain anybody interest in the Martial Arts, but what the magazine is trying to propagate resulted in a strategy for division in the Martial Arts world. Add to that, there is still dissension within Traditional Martial Arts with petty politics. What I know to my knowledge that there are instructors that don’t want change and growth in the Martial Arts. The fantasy we Martial Artists live in is looking at the Martial Arts split into 4 separate categories (or whatever number you people see). My friend Bryan from the Black Belt mag Forums explained to me “that there is just the Martial Arts and not the Martial Arts split up into a number of categories.” The reality is that we are living in a psychological warfare here.
The differences between the four Martial Arts categories is that the Traditional Martial Arts has a number of ancient disciplines such as Karate, Taekwondo, Tang Soo do, Judo, Jujutsu, Aikido, Kung fu. The Traditional Martial Arts can also include disciplines outside of East Asia such as Boxing, Savate, La Canne, Stav, Sambo, Silambam, Kalaripayattu, Kuttu Varisai, Gatka, Fencing, Kuta/Hikuta, Nubian Wrestling, Hausa Boxing, Bate Coxe, N’golo, Tahteeb, Zulu Stick Fighting, Gambian Wrestling, Capoeira, Maculele, Mani, and Laamb Wrestling. Reality Based Self-defense have a few modern known disciplines such as Krav Maga, Systema, Haganah, and Target Focus Training, ideally used as both civilian and military combat.
It is not uncommon for instructors to discourage their students from studying other disciplines. I have heard stories from Forum members of the black belt magazine forum and Karate forums of their teachers forbidding their students to study other disciplines in the Martial Arts. The reality is that the “convoluted classical mess” which the late Bruce Lee talked about is still upon us, making us enslaved to tradition and following a blind devotion resulting in lack of creativity, and open mindedness. The 4 categories of Martial Arts don’t get along very much. Traditionalists thought that MMA is nothing more than savagery, barbarity and lacking on sportsmanship. Furthermore, most MMA practitioners are egotistical and focus on the physical aspects of the Martial Arts. Also Traditionalists most likely don’t consider MMA practitioners as Martial Artists. Xtreme Martial Arts (XMA) is a sport developed in the mid 1990’s and ‘till this day it is a hard to love sport amongst traditionalists and other Martial Artists, a majority of Martial Artists criticized this sport as being too flashy and lacks realistic combat, and quite often those practitioners are denounced as Martial Artists. The fact is that XMA is meant for sport which includes freestyle forms with complicated acrobatics, it is never intended for realistic Martial Arts combat. However, most of those practitioners have a solid foundation in at least one classical Martial Art. The traditional Martial Arts have often been the target of MMA practitioners and Modernists (RBSD) as being outdated, not effective, and being criticized by their curriculum of conveniently spoon feeding their students forms (kata, poomsae) for grading and tournament purposes finding forms practice a waste of time.
Every teacher in their respective Martial Arts can have human flaws; in order to get out of our weaknesses is to reeducate ourselves. If there are 4 categories of Martial Arts with nothing but bad blood and bickering between each other, we have to hit them with ancient roots of fighting systems. I’m not talking about going back to the 1700’s and 1800’s. You can go back to the Ming Dynasty 1392CE, but to understand 1392CE is to understand what happened back in the Paleolithic age and early ancient times. Iain Abernethy said that “Cross training is nothing new.” Therefore, in my belief, cross training has begun pretty much in the beginning of humankind. Developing one’s skills further has been an African conscious thought. The African people had invented Martial combat, developed mathematics, architect, spirituality, medicine, astrology, philosophy and many others and began to branch out all over the African continent and outside the African continent to rule many kingdoms. With their thoughts and talents they were able to pass on their wisdom to anybody. Minoan Cretes and Greeks were the first European to pilgrimage to Kemet (Egypt) and Kush (Ethiopia and Sudan), and they sat at the feet of Africans and learned many subjects, studying at Kemet’s first established library. The Greeks had also learned military combat and unarmed combat techniques, such as boxing and grappling from the African people and took that knowledge back to their homeland.
During the rise of the Kemetic/Egyptian Empire, trade routes were opened to all continents, resources such as clothing, food and weapons was introduced to every kingdom including Martial Arts concepts. The Kemites understood the importance of constantly developing your skills in combat. Therefore, in order to be a fully skilled warrior one must learn their grappling skills, boxing skills, and various weapon skills. In order to keep their Empire intact and win many battles is to keep developing your Martial Arts by adding new things and being innovative on the battlefield. Thus the Shuhari concept (to copy, to hold and to break away and innovate) was originally an African concept. These Martial Arts concepts had been passed down from every civilization because the Africans understood that the world can flourish through being open minded, and that is the power of sharing wisdom. It shouldn’t be taken for granted.
The beginnings of the division of the Martial Arts happened in East Asia with the Japanese rising to military power in the 1870’s Meiji restoration period. The Japanese were racially prejudiced against their Asian neighbours such as the Chinese, Phillipinos, Malayasians, Koreans and many others, and rose to Imperial power by colonizing those nations in the early 1900’s. During the start of the Boxer Rebellion in China. The Japanese looked down on the Chinese people as the “weaklings of Asia.” In the 1920’s when Karate was introduced to mainland Japan from Okinawa, the Japanese were trying to separate Karate from having any influence whatsoever with China, Thailand, Cambodia, Burma and the Phillipines. The Japanese saying is “The protruding nail that sticks out gets hammered down completely.” This saying revealed itself when the art from the Ryukyu Kingdom (Okinawa) was formally called Tode was translated as China Hand, but the ideogram was changed to Karate empty hand. The names of forms such as Wanshu, Kushanku, and Chinto being names named after Chinese Martial Artists were changed to Empi, Kanku, and Gankaku. Including some of the names of forms were of hogen language (an Okinawan dialect) such as Naihanchi, Neipai, Passai were changed to Tekki, Naipaipo, and Bassai. It is clear that the Japanese were trying to deny that Karate had Chinese influence and say that their native arts are superior to others. Along introducing and dan/kyu belt ranking system and a standard uniform and 3K system of teaching their students. Now with the African people, to them there is no such thing as styles. It is not in their consciousness, only different disciplines and principles of the Martial Arts. All the Asiatic, European, North and South American, and Australian fighting systems have their roots in Africa.
After World War II the Westerners learned the Asian Martial Arts from the Japanese and Koreans and took these arts back to the western world, but still with the thought patterns of possessing a dominant art than the others, believing in a delusional that their style, their way is “the gospel truth.” Every fighting system no doubt has at least a little bit of African influence in terms of timing, and rhythm, which is an intricate part of Africa. Many Martial Arts has dance routines which had the intentions to hide deadly techniques, all of them influenced from Africa. If you see musical creative forms (XMA) in competition, it does have a little bit of an Afrocentric feel to it. When Capoeira Rodas are being played in the streets of Rio de Janeiro and other cities and villages in Brazil, it has its roots in Western Africa through song and dance moves. Music and Martial Art practices have bond together since the beginning humankind. What music does, it heals you and gives you an up beat type of mood when you are down and stressed out. Listening and playing music lifts your spirit. The Martial Arts helps relieve stress as well. So it is natural to have traditional and creative form being performed with music, it helps with your timing and coordination when you do the moves to the beat.
Westerners further changed the perception of the Asian Martial Arts by running their businesses as a Black Belt Mill awarding students belts too quickly and many incidences and atrocities had occurred in the Martial Art world. In 1970 in Chicago there was the infamous Dojo Wars which the late Count Dante was involved in. The cause of it was a dispute with a rival dojo about the tournament fee. It can go down as the most horrific event in the Martial Arts world, many students were injured and a friend of Count Dante died in that battle. This was for real. Get the chance to google search Count Dante to read up on his autobiography or go to wikipedia. I thought to myself that Martial Arts are separating us apart than bringing us together, to be like minded people. The reality is that man is the cause of separating us fueled by egotism, and politics.
Tradition in the Martial Arts had been largely misunderstood as only holding on to the ways of how training was and still should be as such. In the African concept of training, tradition in Martial Sciences is to learn from everyone and bring in something new. Those were the concepts of cross-training to develop a new discipline, like contemporary Martial Artists such as EW Barton-Wright and Bruce Lee had done. Then be able to propagate training methods to develop effective warriors. To the Africans, there is no dominant “style,” it only depends on how the individual uses it effectively in combat.
In 1392CE Ming Dynasty China there was an influx of people from southern China migrating over to the Ryukyu Kingdom (modern day Okinawan Prefecture) in Kume Village, it was there that the Ryukyu kingdom had come into its golden age. The Chinese introduced Calligraphy, Astronomy, Architect, Language arts, and Martial Arts being further developed in Okinawa which became Ti. Thus, Okinawans and Chinese had a close relationship in trade for several centuries, prior to the Meiji Restoration, many Okinawans have traveled to Fuzhou province and other provinces in China to study their art, and then travel back to their native home and develop new techniques. Cross-training has always become part of tradition. It was Emperor Hong Wu who had liberated the Ryukyu Kingdom from Mongol occupation and established the Ming Dynasty in 1368CE. According to Abraham Hardy, Emperor Hong Wu was Sudanese Moorish and Mongol descent. He has written a blog on myspace title Hacomtaewresdo African Warrior Arts History and Lineage which is a good read. Asian civilization flourished in the medieval times as much as Europe when that continent was coming out of its age darkness. The Moors had made contributions which resulted in the revitalization of Europe’s economy and the status of education in both Europe and Asia. In the 14th century CE, during the Almohade Moorish Dynasty in Europe, the Moors were the pioneers of the Renaissance era. During ancient times and the middle ages, the Africans were very instrumental in introducing their high knowledge to the world outside their continent.
I don’t say the word “style” much when I talk about the Martial Arts, because that word brings us to division instead of bonding us together as a family. If you have an individual who is from another planet that has inhuman features with four arms and eight legs, then we can look at that fighter practicing a different style. All of us have two arms and two legs. All of us Martial Artists Classical, Sport-like, and Modern-like should always learn a little bit from each other. You don’t have to have the desire to train in that system, but at least show respect to other disciplines. I can be able to learn a little bit from individuals like Scott Wu, Brendon and Dayna Huor, Austin Crain, Lauren Kearney, and Antonio Diaz to up my skills in competitions. The key is to be open minded, and it can bring us together as a family without divisions of styles. Style is just an illusion that breaks us apart. If a student asks me if he or she wants to learn another Martial Art discipline, I would say it would be a great idea to expand your skills in Martial Arts, but I suggest to you to be well-based in one discipline, and when you reach black belt, then you can go and train in another discipline if you like.
Sharing thoughts and ideas, and training in numerous disciplines in order to develop something new in the Martial Arts has been a tradition that had been misunderstood by many Martial Artists. We should never divide ourselves with our politics or think that our style is better than their style. These thought patterns are an illusion, and we must live in a reality that stood the test of time which the African people had influenced upon the world. In our mind, body and spirit, we should always be open minded.
Note: In many of my readings, the great Chinese migration into Okinawa happened in the year 1393CE. In one book in Patrick McCarthy’s translation of the Bubishi. While in some articles it said 1392CE, but the years are pretty close at least.
Jonathan
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